Kashu, My Birth Place

　　Kashu is the name of a small village where my parents lived in their twenties. I was born there 52 years ago. Even now it is considerably far away from the prefectural capital city, so this village must have been an extremely rural place in those days.
　　We dropped in at this village and looked for the house which my parents rented 50 years ago. The scene completely changed and they managed to find the place where our house was built, but the house had been demolished and a storage shed was there. I was sorry not to be able to see the house, but my parents found a woman who used to be their neighbor. She remembered me, and told me a fantastic story about the day I was born.
　　In the tiny isolated village, there was no doctor. Old ladies who had experienced their own deliveries used to attend the delivery as a so-called midwife. The delivery wasn't always safe. After giving birth to me, a midwife advised my father to feed my mother something nutritious, like carp. There was naturally no supermarket. He went out to a nearby pond whose size was about twice as large as the average ballpark. The purpose? Of course, in order to catch a carp for my mother.
　　You know what, he caught a big enough carp to amaze the village people. The midwives and neighbors seemed to believe that this baby must be gifted.

• (Vocabulary)
• shed  物置, (物置)小屋; (電車の) 車庫, 倉庫, 作業場
• a tool shed 道具小屋
• birth attendant / maternity nurse / midwife 助産師

Comments

[Peter]

I think the midwives and neighbors were right! (peter)